IIEPOUT ON THE DEPARTMENT OF MOLLUSKS (INCLUDING TERTIARY 

 FOSSILS) IN THE U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



By William Healey Dall, Ronoranj Curator. 



The force of the Department of Molluscs for the period reported on 

 in addition to the Curator, has consisted of Dr. E. E. C. Stearns, As- 

 sistant Curator, and Mr. Pierre Louis Jouy, Aid. Assistance has also 

 been rendered from time to time in their work on the fossils collected 

 by the U. S. Geological Survey, by Messrs. Frank Burns and G. 

 Stuart, under my instructions, with the permission of the Director of 

 the Survey. 



The work, as in previous years, has largely consisted of the reduc- 

 tion to order, classification, labeling, registry, and arrangement in 

 cases of material either in arrears or received during the current year. 

 The manner in which this is done has been described in previous reports, 

 and it does not seem necessary to repeat the details here. Excellent pro- 

 gress has been made in the work of bringing up the arrears. Unless 

 checked by matters beyond the control of the curator, such as the stop- 

 page of work for alterations in the building, by the necessity of supply- 

 ing material to exhibitions in other cities from which our department 

 receives no benefit, or the illness of members of the working force, a 

 few years will see these arrearages cleared away. As there is no sepa- 

 ration in a biologic sense, so there has been no separation in an admin- 

 istrative sense, between the work on mollusks of the tertiary formations 

 and those obtained from recent seas. To some extent they are kept 

 separated from reasons of convenience in refereuce and on account of 

 the great weight of some of the fossils, which renders it inadvisable to 

 place them in the same drawer with recent specimens. But it is imprac- 

 ticable to assort the work as between the two classes of material. The 

 curator was absent at Philadelphia at two different times during the 

 past year, aggregating about nine weeks altogether, during which time 

 he supervised the packing, and to a large extent j)ersonally performed 

 the labor of registration and packing of the very valuable collection 

 left to the Museum by the late Dr. Isaac Lea. This collection, apart 

 from the minerals with which the writer has had nothing to do, corn- 

 X)rised a large number of American and European fossils, largely tyi)es 

 of Dr. Lea's publications or specimens selected for their beauty and 



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